"as racist or sexist. Discussion regarding the historicity of the Book of Mormon often focuses on archaeological issues, some of which relate to the large size and the long time span of the civilizations mentioned in the book. Joseph Smith founded the movement in upstate New York in the 1820s. The faith drew its first converts while Smith was dictating the text of the Book of Mormon from golden plates which had reformed Egyptian writing on them which he said he found buried after being directed to their location by the Angel Moroni. The book described itself as a chronicle"
"creeds were an abomination."" Smith described another vision in 1823 as being visited in his bedroom by an ""angel Moroni"", who told him of a record of an ancient people written in an ancient language on golden plates. After repeated visits by this angel in successive years, Smith described receiving and translating this ancient record and publishing the translation as the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon provided many teachings about the atonement of Christ that were not as clear in the Bible, as also teachings about the House of Israel and the baptismal covenant. When Smith prayed in"
"in white raiment, of whiteness beyond anything Joseph had ever seen in his life, and had a girdle about his waist. He saw his hands and wrists, and they were pure and white."" Smith said that on the night of September 21, 1823, Moroni appeared to him and told him about the golden plates that were buried in a stone box a few miles from Smith's home. Smith said that the same angel visited him various times over the course of the next six years; Smith also said that the angel visited him to retrieve the golden plates after Smith"
"angel of God named Moroni appeared to him and said that a collection of ancient writings was buried in a nearby hill in present-day Wayne County, New York, engraved on golden plates by ancient prophets. The writings were said to describe a people whom God had led from Jerusalem to the Western hemisphere 600 years before Jesus' birth. According to the narrative, Moroni was the last prophet among these people and had buried the record, which God had promised to bring forth in the latter days. Smith stated that this vision occurred on the evening of September 21, 1823 and"
"including Jesus and God the Father. Smith also described many other visions involving angels. Some of his earliest visitations involved a Nephite prophet-warrior, who called himself Moroni. Smith said this angel appeared to him many times, and showed him where to find a set of buried Golden Plates containing ancient writings that the prophet-warrior had sealed in a stone box before his death, together with other artifacts. The writings on the Golden Plates, according to Smith, contained an account of the various nations that inhabited ancient America, and described how they were led to the New World by Jesus, but"
"the angel Moroni, a resurrected ancient American prophet-historian, who had been last to write on them. Smith claimed that the angel required him to obey certain commandments prior to receiving them and that his inability to obey prevented him from obtaining the plates until four years later, on September 22, 1827. During this period, Smith also began dictating written commandments in the voice of God, including a commandment to form a new church and to choose eleven men who would join Smith as witnesses of the plates. These witnesses later declared, in two separate written statements attached to the 1830"
"design to his previous angels, but he gave Moroni a slightly larger build, with his left hand opened and his body turned slightly to show more action. The Bern Switzerland Temple's Angel Moroni is patterned after Quilter's 1998 design. Quilter's Angel Moroni is now on over one hundred temples around the world. Angel Moroni The Angel Moroni () is an angel stated by Joseph Smith to have visited him on numerous occasions, beginning on September 21, 1823. According to Smith, the angel was the guardian of the golden plates, which Latter Day Saints believe are the source material for the"
"Smith's son, Joseph Jr., began to tell the family about golden plates, which he said contained a record of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas. In September 1827, Joseph Jr. said he obtained the plates. In the following years, Joseph Jr. said he translated the plates into English through the use of the Urim and Thummim, a sacred device given to him by the angel Moroni. When the work was near completion, at the end of June 1829, Joseph Sr. and seven other men signed a joint statement, testifying that they had both lifted the plates and seen the engravings"
"said they saw the plates in 1829, and three also claiming to have been visited by an angel. Several other witnesses observed Smith dictating the text that eventually became the Book of Mormon. Critics have explored a number of issues, including (1) whether Joseph Smith actually had golden plates, or whether the text of the Book of Mormon originated in his mind or through inspiration; (2) whether it was Smith himself who composed the book's text or an associate of Smith's, such as Oliver Cowdery or Sidney Rigdon; and (3) whether the book was based on prior works, such as"
"first stone, apparently the same one that he used at least part of the time to translate the golden plates, was chocolate-colored and about the size of a chicken egg, found in a deep well he helped dig for one of his neighbors. The LDS Church released photographs of the stone on August 4, 2015. According to Smith, he found the plates after he was directed to them by a heavenly messenger whom he later identified as the angel Moroni. According to the story, the angel first visited Smith's bedroom late at night, on September 22 in 1822 or 1823."
"physically in 1829 (three claiming to have been visited by an angel as well). Several other witnesses, some of them friendly to Smith and some hostile, observed him dictating the text that eventually became the Book of Mormon. Nevertheless, critics have explored a number of issues, including (1) whether Smith actually had golden plates, or whether the text of the Book of Mormon originated in his mind or through inspiration; (2) whether it was Smith himself who composed the book's text, or whether an associate of Smith's such as Oliver Cowdery or Sidney Rigdon could have composed the text; and"
"who inscribed a few additional words of his own, and concealed the plates about AD 400. Near the end of Moroni's life (approximately AD 421), he placed these plates along with several other items in a stone box in a hillside (now named Cumorah) near present-day Palmyra, New York. By Smith's account, on September 21, 1823, this same Moroni, now an angel, appeared to Smith to instruct him about this ancient record and its destined translation into English. Smith was shown the location of the plates (and the other items in the box), but was not immediately allowed to take"
"prophets, buried in a nearby hill in Ontario County, New York. These writings became the Book of Mormon, and were said to have described a people whom God had led from Jerusalem to the Western Hemisphere 600 years before Jesus' birth. According to the narrative, Moroni was the last prophet among these people and had buried the record, which God had promised to bring forth in the latter days. Smith stated that he was instructed by Moroni to meet him at the hill annually each September 22 to receive further instructions; four years after the initial visit, in 1827, he"
"aside from the gospel."" Smith said he told the experience to a preacher, who dismissed the story with contempt. The event would later grow in importance to Smith's followers, who now regard it as the first event in the gradual restoration of Christ's church to earth. Until the 1840s, however, the experience was largely unknown, even to most Mormons. Smith may have originally understood the event simply as a personal conversion. According to his later accounts, Smith was visited by an angel named Moroni, while praying one night in 1823. Smith said that this angel revealed the location of a"
"plates by Joseph Smith rather than by an angel as had the Three Witnesses. Toward the end of June 1829, at the Peter Whitmer, Sr. home in Fayette, New York, Joseph Smith, Jr. (with Oliver Cowdery as scribe) finished the translation of the Book of Mormon. Near the end of translation process, a prophecy was translated from the Second Book of Nephi that three, and ""a few"" others, might see the golden plates. Subsequently, on June 28, 1829, near the Whitmer farm, the Three Witnesses had their experience. Thereafter, the Smith and Whitmer families traveled to the Joseph Smith, Sr."
"metal plates from the ancient Mediterranean longer than the eight-page Persian codex, and none from any ancient civilization in the Western Hemisphere. Latter Day Saint movement and engraved metal plates Engraved metal plates hold a special significance in the Latter Day Saint movement because in 1827, the founder of that religion, Joseph Smith, claimed to have obtained a set of engraved golden plates from an angel and from them translated the Book of Mormon, a religious text of that religious tradition. Latter Day Saints believe that other engraved metal plates exist, most of which are mentioned in the Book of"
"Joseph Smith Jr. to a set of golden plates buried in upstate New York. The golden plates contained writing in an ancient script and told the story of an extinct civilization. Using a special pair of spectacles, Smith translated the writing on the plates, which he said were written in “Egyptian shorthand.” The result of Smith's translation was the Book of Mormon. Only Smith was permitted to view the plates; however, he gave a small hand-copied transcript of the characters to his financier and scribe, Martin Harris. Wishing to corroborate the authenticity of his investment, Harris took the transcript to"
"led by an angel to a large hill in upstate New York, where he was shown an ancient manuscript engraved on plates of gold metal. Joseph Smith claimed to have translated this manuscript into modern English under divine inspiration by the gift and power of God, and the publication of this translation are known as the Book of Mormon. Following Smith's murder, there was a succession crisis that resulted in a great schism. The majority of Latter-day Saints believing Brigham Young to be the next prophet and following him out to Utah, while a minority returned to Missouri with Emma"
"through magical practices, but it also replaced the angel that Smith said had appeared to him with a white salamander. After the letter had been purchased for the church and become public knowledge, LDS Church apostle Dallin H. Oaks asserted to Mormon educators that the words ""white salamander"" could be reconciled with Smith's Angel Moroni because, in the 1820s, the word ""salamander"" might also refer to a mythical being thought to be able to live in fire, and a ""being that is able to live in fire is a good approximation of the description Joseph Smith gave of the Angel"
"of the church is then shown. The first event is in 1813 when the bone in his left leg was seriously infected. Amputation was avoided by an experimental operation to remove the infected parts of the bone. The next segment tells of Smith's First Vision of God and Jesus Christ. Narration relates that the time was early in the spring of 1820. Three years later, Smith receives a visitation from the Angel Moroni who tells him where to find the golden plates. After finding them, he relates that he has been told that there will be several years of training"
"I had retired to bed"" (referring to the later visit of the angel Moroni who showed him the location of the golden plates). Smith identified none of these personages or angels with ""the Lord"" as he had in 1832. A few days later, on November 14, 1835, Smith told the story to another visitor, Erastus Holmes. In his journal, Smith said that he had recited his life story ""up to the time I received the first visitation of angels, which was when I was about fourteen years old."" In 1838, Smith began dictating the early history of what later became"
"period without any further visits from Jibrīl (during which Muhammad continued to pray and devote himself to spiritual practices), the angel returned once more, and the other 113 Surahs of the Quran were revealed over the next 23 years, which were memorized by their hearers. Muhammad himself did not collect the Quran into a single, written volume; this was largely done after his death. Mormons believe that when Joseph Smith, Jr. was seventeen years of age, an angel of God named Moroni appeared to him and told him of a collection of ancient writings engraved on golden plates by ancient"
"soon thereafter the rest of his family, who believed his story, but generally kept it within the family. Thus, on September 22, 1823, a day listed in local almanacs as the autumn equinox, Smith said that he went to a prominent hill near his home, and found the location of the artifacts. There are varying accounts as to how Smith reportedly found the precise location of the golden plates. In 1838, Smith stated that this location was shown to him in a vision while he conversed with Moroni. This conforms to an account by Smith's friend Joseph Knight Sr., though"
"strange characters resembling hieroglyphics. The plates were briefly exhibited in the city, and then sent on to Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Twenty years earlier, on September 22, 1823, Smith claimed to have uncovered a set of golden plates, and, according to Latter Day Saint belief, translated them into the Book of Mormon. The finders of the Kinderhook plates, and the general public, were keen to know if Smith would be able to decipher the symbols on the Kinderhook plates as well. The ""Times and Seasons"", a Latter Day Saint publication, claimed that the existence"
"appeared to Joseph Smith in 1823 and directed him to where the plates were hidden. According to Joseph Smith's account, this was the Hill Cumorah, near Palmyra, New York. The ""Book of Mormon"" is sometimes published as ""The Record of the Nephites"". It is also called ""The Nephite Record"" and ""The Stick of Joseph"", depending on the publisher. The term Stick of Joseph is a reference to the verses in the King James Version of the Bible, Book of Ezekiel chapter 37, which the Latter Day Saint movement believes to be a prophecy of the ""Record of the Nephites"". Typically,"
"referred to this object as the Urim and Thummim. In 1823, Smith said that the angel Moroni, who had told him about the golden plates, also told him about the Urim and Thummim, ""two stones in silver bows"" fastened to a breastplate, and the angel intimated that they had been prepared by God to aid in the translation of the plates. Smith's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, described these Urim and Thummim as being like ""two smooth three-cornered diamonds."" Smith also said he used the Urim and Thummim to assist him in receiving other divine revelations, including some of the sections"
"Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, claimed the Book of Mormon was a translation of golden plates which Smith had been guided to by an angel. Lawrence figures in some of the discovery narratives of the golden plates. Willard Chase recalled in 1833 that Smith had been told by a spirit ""to come again, in just one year, and bring a man with him"". According to Chase, Smith at one point ""believed that one Samuel T. Lawrence was the man alluded to by the spirit"" and reportedly took Lawrence ""to a singular looking hill, in Manchester, and showed"
"from digging up the plates. As a result of Martin Harris's loss of the 116 pages of manuscript, Smith said that between July and September 1828, the angel Moroni took back both the plates and the Urim and Thummim as a penalty for his having delivered ""the manuscript into the hands of a wicked man."" According to Smith's mother, the angel returned the objects to Smith on September 22, 1828, the anniversary of the day that he first received them. In March 1829, Martin Harris visited Harmony and asked to see the plates. Smith told him that he ""would go"
"which he and his partisans vigorously denied. The plates disappeared around 1900, and their current whereabouts are unknown. According to Latter Day Saint beliefs, many ancient inhabitants of the Americas engraved records on metal plates. Joseph Smith, the movement's founding prophet, claimed that he translated the Book of Mormon from a set of golden plates which he was shown the location of by the then resurrected ancient keeper of the plates, Moroni. Upon Smith's murder in 1844, a number of claimants came forward to lead his church, including Strang. As a recent convert to Mormonism, Strang did not possess the"
"was the only daughter to survive. Kimball claims to have witnessed a miraculous event on September 22, 1827. According to his autobiography, he subsequently learned that it ""took place the same evening that Joseph Smith received the records of the Book of Mormon from the Angel Moroni."" He had seen ""a white smoke"" arising on the horizon, growing ""clear and transparent of a bluish cast"" to reveal an army on the move ""in platoons"": We could see distinctly the muskets, bayonets, and knapsacks of the men, who wore caps and feathers like those used by the American soldiers in the"
"unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing"". Upon completion of the record, written on golden plates, Moroni is said to have buried the plates in a stone box in a hill in what is now Wayne County, New York, from where Joseph Smith reported that he recovered them; a 12-metre granite and bronze monument to Moroni has been placed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on this hill. In Latter Day Saint belief, Moroni was resurrected after his"
"unto me, and told me where they were; and gave me directions how to obtain them. However, on May 2, 1838, a few months before Smith's statement in ""Elders' Journal"", Smith began dictating a church history that included a detailed account of his visits from the angel. In this text, Smith identified the angel as ""Nephi"", which is the name of the Book of Mormon's first narrator. Smith's 1838 identification as ""Nephi"" was left unchanged when the 1838 history was published in 1842 in ""Times and Seasons"", which Smith edited himself, and in ""Millennial Star"". In the latter, an editorial"
"and a chocolate-colored stone that he found in 1822. His favored stone, chocolate-colored and about the size of an egg, was found in a deep well he helped dig for one of his neighbors. In 1827, Smith said he obtained the ""Urim and Thummim"" which was composed of two white stones, different from the previous two. In 1823, Smith said that an angel told him of the existence of golden plates along with ""two stones in silver bows"" fastened to a breastplate that the angel said God had prepared for translating the plates. In dictating the Book of Mormon, Smith"